Accounts and transactions

Where your money sits, and the register that records what happens to it.

An account is a real place your money is. A transaction is one thing that happened to it. Together they are the ledger the budget reads.

Accounts

Every account has a type, which is a label rather than a behaviour: Checking, Savings, Credit Card, Cash, or Other. Credit cards are ordinary accounts here, with no separate payment machinery.

The setting that does change behaviour is On Budget.

  • On Budget accounts feed your envelopes. Their balances make up To Budget, and their transactions change envelope balances.
  • Off Budget accounts are tracked but excluded from the budget. Use them for money you want to watch without budgeting.

Whether an account is On Budget is fixed at creation. Decide it when you add the account.

Every account opens with an Opening Balance, recorded as a Starting Balance transaction dated today.

The register

Tapping an account opens its register: its transactions, newest first, with a running balance. There is also an All Accounts row that shows everything in one register.

Each account shows two balances, and the difference matters:

BalanceWhat it counts
RunningEvery transaction, including ones the bank has not processed
ClearedOnly transactions marked Cleared

The chips under the balance are shortcuts into the register. Tapping the one that counts transactions needing a category jumps straight to them.

The three kinds of transaction

Expense and Income are one entry against one account, usually with a category.

Transfer moves money between two of your own accounts and is always two paired rows, one in each account. It has no category, because moving your own money between your own places does not spend it. Edit or delete either leg and Pentos keeps the pair together.

Splits

One purchase can belong to several categories. A split transaction has a parent row carrying the total and lines beneath it carrying the categories.

The parent itself has no category, so it never affects the budget on its own. The lines do.

Cleared and reconciled

Three states, in order of firmness:

  1. Uncleared by default. You have recorded it; the bank may not have processed it.
  2. Cleared when you have seen it on the bank’s side.
  3. Reconciled when it matched a statement during a reconciliation. Reconciled rows lock against edits.

Refer to Reconcile an account.

Undo

Every change is undoable, including bulk edits and deletions, from More in the toolbar. Shaking the device undoes as well.

An account register listing transactions with a running balance.
Add an account Create an account for a real place your money sits, and decide whether it is on budget. Record a transaction Enter an expense, income, or transfer into an account's register. Split a transaction Divide one transaction across several categories. Transfer between accounts Move money between two of your own accounts as a single paired transaction. Find and filter transactions Search a register, narrow it with filters, and jump to transactions that need attention. Edit transactions in bulk Change the category, payee, date, or account of many transactions at once. Reconcile an account Match an account against a bank statement and lock the transactions that agree. Undo a change Take back an edit, a bulk change, or a deletion, and see a labelled history of what you did.